You already know to run the spell checker and have someone proofread for typos. These checks are about content: the things that catch a resume that is clean but not working. This final content check does not need to take long.
The application's own instructions
- Re-read the advertisement and candidate information pack one last time. Any page limit, required documents, format and referee arrangements come from there and override every general suggestion in this series.
- Is everything the application asks for attached, pitch or criteria responses, qualifications, referee details if required, not just the resume?
- Is the file named sensibly (your name and the word resume at minimum) and saved in the format the portal asks for? Where none is specified, PDF holds its layout; use Word if the instructions say so.
Structure and readability
- Is the most relevant experience easy to find, early in the document and early in each role?
- Can employers, titles and dates be followed at a glance, in consistent reverse chronological order?
- Are date formats consistent throughout, and consistent with what you will enter in the application form?
- Could any tables, text boxes, graphics or photos be replaced with plain text?
- Does detail taper off in older roles, and has anything that adds nothing to this application been removed?
The opening of the resume
- If you use a profile, is it specific and checkable: what you do, your experience, your strongest evidence, rather than general qualities?
- If you use highlights, are they chosen for this vacancy rather than carried over from the last one?
- Reading only the first third of page one, is your case for this role visible? If not, move something.
The substance
- Does each major role show more than generic duties: your contribution, its scale and context, and results where they honestly exist?
- Is every figure one you could explain if asked: where it came from, how it was measured, what your part was?
- Where outcomes were shared, does the wording reflect your actual part: contributed to, provided analysis for, developed the tool used to?
- Do the terms match the vacancy where they accurately describe your experience, without copying the advertisement?
- Are acronyms written out at first use, and is the voicemail on the listed number in working order?
- Is anything duplicated that the length does not allow for?
Then submit
A last thought for perfectionists: draft quickly, sleep on it, make one pass against the questions above, show it to one other person, and send it. Once the resume is clear, accurate and tailored, submit it rather than continuing to polish minor details. Applications have closing dates.